Allen, 87, has long been the subject of unproven claims he raped his and Mia Farrow’s adopted seven-year-old daughter Dylan while Polanski, 90, was convicted of the anal rape of a 13-year-old American girl in 1977. Besson, 64, was cleared last year of an actress’s claim that he raped her in 2018.
Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah And Her Sisters auteur Allen is presenting his first French language film, Coup de Chance (‘Stroke of Luck’) in Venice while Chinatown and The Pianist auteur Polanski is presenting his latest, The Palace. The Fifth Element and Leon director Besson is premiering his latest, Dogman. All three films have been met with mixed reviews.
The protest by the bare-breasted young women took place as Allen was crossing the Red Carpet with his wife Soon-Yi Previn, another of farrow’s daughters.
“Turn off the limelight on rapists,” shouted the women before staging a flash mob that was broken up by security.
They distributed a leaflet saying, “this year the Venice Cinema Biennale has chosen to give space to directors involved in cases of sexual violence against women, including minors”.
“The excuses, aired by Show Director Alberto Barbera, follow the old script of the distinction between the man, responsible before the law, and the artist whose genius is never to be judged because it is superior and free from earthly responsibilities.
“You would never allow a parade on the Red Carpet of those who acted, to cite just the latest cases, in the rapes in Palermo, Caivano and Milan” (where women and minors were allegedly gang raped).
The protesters also cited Italian actor and producer Luca Barbareschi who recently said that many of the actresses who had denounced sexual abuse had done so to “get publicity for themselves”.
ANSA
